"If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not..."
--Shakespeare

IT'S 2031. The world is on the brink of chaos. In the United States of North America, spiraling crime and unemployment rates,
decayed school systems and massive government regulations have led to a lazy, contentious society.

To reverse this critical situation, government and industry leaders have developed a Plan combining the economic freedom
and strong moral values of the 1950's with the technological advancements of the 21st century. Will the Plan ensure peace and prosperity?
Or will it set the earth on a suicide course to destruction?

As the world's first conscious, intelligent computer, only you can visit places that have never been seen before. Only you
can view the future. And only you know what must be done to save humanity.

A major departure for Infocom, A Mind Forever Voyaging is reminiscent of such classic works of science
fiction as Brave New World and 1984. You'll spend less time solving puzzles, as you explore realistic worlds
of the future.

AMFV Box Contents

Dakota Online Magazine - April 2031

More Scans: Ballpoint, Codewheel and map of Rockvil, South Dakota

Class One Security Mode Access Decoder

Item #603475 Valid March 15-31, 2031

PRISM PROJECT FACILITY
Class One Security Mode Access Decoder

Wheel #

89

61

50

18

29

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46

77

27

68

22

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86

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Dk. Green

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Blue

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Orange

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Purple

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Tan

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Aqua

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Lt. Blue

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Lt. Green

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Lt. Grey

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Yellow

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Black

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Dk. Grey

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Red

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White

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43

Instructions for use:
a) Select indicated color.
b) Locate indicated number on top line.
c) Read corresponding number from the appropriate column/row.
d) Use this number to gain access to any PRISM Project Class One Security Mode.

FOR AUTHORIZED USE ONLY
Project PRISM project Security.
Do not leave this matrix in an unsecured area!

A Mind Forever Voyaging (short story)

Perry Simm was four years old when he became lost in the
department store in the city.

He let go of Mother's hand to pick up the video cube. he
rotated it with wonderment, touching the control knobs and
sqealing with delight as the images shifted...

His brother Clave, Perry's senior by three years, bounced
impatiently in the aisle, "Mom," he whined, "they're going to be
sold out of the new Skydiver disc, and you promised I could get
one."

"Be patient, Clave," admonished Mother, but across the floor
she could see long lines at the Simulation Discs counter. There
were stops at the Foodville and the O-Link repair shop still to
go. She made a hasty decision.

"Perry, Clave and I are going to another department. I want you
to wait right here until we get back."

"Okay," he said, without looking up from the cube.

A few minutes later, Perry discovered the selector panel, but
while trying to open it he dropped the cube onto the hard
plasticrete floor. The six screens flashed brightly and then
faded to darkness.

Perry became frightened and looked around for Mother. She was
nowhere in sight. Fear of discovery and punishment welled up
inside him, and in his desire to get away from the broken cube he
forgot about the order to stay put. He wandered to the end of the
aisle, and spotted Mother a short distance away, rummaging
through a bin of myalon vests. As he ran towards her, he realized
that it was just a starnger with only a vague resemblance to
Mother. Fighting back tears, he decided to return to the spot
where the broken cube lay.

He wandered down the aisles, each lined with tall shelves of
glittering merchandise, and after several confused minutes
discovered that he was completely lost. He had no idea how to
find Mother, and he had no idea how to find the spot where he had
last seen her. He was alone, abandoned. Strangers, huge and
terrifying, jostled past. Walls of boxed appliances towered above
him. Fear and despair won the battle for his emotions, and he
began to cry.

After an endless time, during which a lot of strangers had
asked a lot of questions which he'd been too confused or too
frightened to answer, he found himself in a small, quiet room.
The door opened, and Mother came in, scooping him up into her
arms. He cried again, burying his face into the warmth of her
loving embrace.

Abraham Perelman and Aseejh Randu waited in the plush Main
Conference Room overlooking the Control Centre. Through the
window-wall. Perelman could see dozens of technicians, busily
preparing for today's big event. For the umpteenth time he felt
thankful to have such a superb, competant team. it was a far cry
from the early days, when he had to keep on top of every detail.

Perelman glanced over toward Randu, and noticed his friend's
nervousness. "Don't worry, Aseejh, it's no big deal. I met him
once before, at a social affair in Washington, and he's an easygoing
guy."

"Yes, I have heard that." A smile tugged at the corners of the
Indian's normally stony face. "But after speaking with Vera, he
could very well be whipped into a frenzy!" Vera Gold was the
Chief Administrator of the Project.

"Nonsense," Perelman scoffed. "She'll turn on the charm for
him. She saves her venom for underlings like us."

"True," agreed Randu, "By now, she has probably taken credit
for the entire project, to say nothing of the inventions of
molecular memory and the artificial heart."

A door opened at the far end of the long room, and a few Secret
Service agents walked in, followed by the Vice-President, vera
Gold, several aides, and more Secret Service agents.

"...speak for the entire staff," Gold was saying, "when I say
what a tremendous honour and pleasure it is that you could attend
today."

"Pass me a barf bag," whispered Perelman to Randu.

"You underrate the importance of this Project, Ms Gold, "The
President and many other important people have a keen interest in
this experiment. As you know, it's quite an uphill battle against
public opinion if we're to deter Senator Ryder and his Plan."

The retinue had almost reached Perelman and Randu. Vera said,
"I hope we can live up to your expectations. And now, despite all
your wonderful compliments, I really must share some of the
credit with these gentlemen here. Dr. Abraham Perelman and Dr.
Aseejh Randu. I don't want to bore you with technical details,
but basically Dr. Randu is our hardware man and Dr. Perelman is
our software man."

As the Vice-President shook their hands warmly, Perleman fumed
at Gold's demeaning description. It was THEY who had started the
Project, THEY who had...

"I remember it well. I think we discussed baseball standings.
Later, I learned that you were an expert in AI. Perhaps I can
make up for my ignorance then by asking you to give me a brief
overview now. I find the entire field fascinating."

"It would be my pleasure, Mr. Vice-President," Perelman
respnded. He grinned to himself as he noticed Gold giving him one
of her best "keep in your place" glares. "I think we really ought
to begin the tour..." Gold insinuated.

Perelman turned to Gold, smiling sweetly. "I'm sure I can
answer the Vice-President's request as we go." Turning back to
their guest, he said "Did you know that the first serious work in
artificial intelligence was done around the middle of the
twentieth century?"

Perry Simm was six years old when he was bullied on his first day
of elementary school.

So far, it had been a day of strange, confusing images: Mother
and father waving goodbye as he boarded the large yellow bus, the
older children with badges herding everyone down the long
hallways lined with colourful nubbly tiles, the friendly Ms.
Borne writing her name on the whiteboard, the boxes of band new
crayons, the frightening hugeness of the school auditorium.

Perry was cutting shapes out of coloured construction paper
when a funny sound filled the room, and Ms. Borne told everyone
that it was time to go home. He barely remembered to grab his
lunchboxm the brand-new one with the pony pictures all over it,
and the red hat that Grandma had knitted. Then, confusion in the
hallways again. One of the older children with a badge, who Perry
had learned were called Monitors, asked him for his bus route
number.

"Seven," he said, confidently. Mother had drilled the number
into him.

Soon Perry was standing on the sidewalk with a group of other
children. He looked around, but didn't see anyone from his class.
Everyone seemed to be older and bigger than Perry. Slowly he
realized that someone from behind was talking to him.

"Hey! Hey, you with the red hat!"

Perry turned around, and found himself facing three older boys.
Two of them were wearing Monitor badges.

"That's a great hat, runt," said the tallest of the three,
"Where'd you get it?"

"Grandma," replied Perry, confused by their amusement.

"Hey," one of the older boys shouted over Perry's head, "look
at Grandma's boy here, wearing a hat in September!"

"What are you going to wear in December, runt, a spacesuit?!"

The boys laughed again, and Perry began to get a funny feeling
deep in his chest.

"And look at this lunchbox!" said the third of the boys, "What
pretty ponies, huh?"

"Hey, Grandma's boy, do you like ponies?"

The tallest boy suddenly reached out and grabbed Perry's hat.

"What'll Grandma say if you come home without your hat, huh?"

"Gimme that," shouted Perry, tears beginning to spill down his
face.

"Look, the runt's a crybaby! The runt's a crybaby!"

Suddenly, through the tears, Perry became of a grown-up
standing between him and his tormentors, speaking sternly.
A moment later, the man was leading Perry away down the street.

"What's your name, little fella?" asked the man. He had a
friendly voice, and as Perry began to wipe away his tears he saw
the man had a friendly face as well. He was carrying Perry's hat
in one hand, and a hefty pile of books in the other hand.

"Perry," he answered, still sniffling a bit.

"Well, Perry, everything's okay now. Why don't you come in, and
we'll see if we can't fix you up with some milk and cookies."

The Vice-President glanced at the rows of data banks in the
Simulation Controller area, and turned back to Perelman. "Please
go on. Your history lesson on AI is fascinating."

Perelman took a deep breath. "Ummm...A major breakthrough in
the field came with the realization that the computer and the
human mind worked in fundamentaly different ways. Computers
stored and analyzed data numerically, while the human mind stored
and analyzes data symbolically."

"You see, computers generally solve problems using algorithms,
rigorous step-by-step procedures that are usually mathematical in
nature. For instance, a program to play the card game Poker would
calculate the odds for all possible hands in the current game
before making a bet. A person in the same situation couldn't
possibly consider every possible combination of cards, and would
have to make a decision based on such factors as experience,
judgement, intuition, and rules of thumb. This is called the
heuristic method of problem-solving."

The tour reached the long tunnel leding to the office wing of
the complex. The Vice-President preceded Perelman onto the moving
walkway.

"By developing methods for computers to solve problems
heuristically," Perelman continued, "the pioneers had developed
programs that imitated human problem-solving in very specific
areas, such as playing chess, diagnosing diseases, or translating
text from one human language to another. These 'expert systems',
as they were known, were superb within their areas of expertise,
and in many cases even improved themselves by 'learning' - adding
knowledge based on their own experience."

"The political fund-raising telecomputer we use works in that
way," commented the Vice-President.

"That is precisely ALL they could do...mimc! The spark of
intelligence was missing. Scientists in the AI field were still
distant from that almost mystical goal of creating a computer
that could act creatively, that would be aware of it's own
existance, that would truly be a thinking machine!"

Perry Simm was ten years old when he decided that he wanted to
be a writer.

It was a warm day, probably the warmest so far this spring, so
they were sitting on the kitchen veranda, overlooking Rav and
Frita's beautiful wooded backyard. A skycar whizzed over the
woods, shattering the peacefulness of the afternoon.

"I hate skycars," said Perry.

"They've just about finished installing an auto-controller
system for the whole city," said Frita, "and when that's done
they say skycars'll be as common as regular cars are now. How's
the cake, Perry?"

"Yum as always, Aunt Frita!" said Perry, licking the last
crumbs off the plate. "You ought to have a piece, Uncle Rav."

Rav and Frita weren't really Perry's aunt and uncle, but he'd
been calling them that ever since that day, years earlier, when
Rav had rescued him from a gang of bullies on his first day of
school. Almost every day, he would stop by on the way home from
school for some of Frita's homemade croissants and jam, or
angelcakes, or pudding.

Rav was a writer, and he was fond of saying, "A writer must be,
first and foremost, a reader." He was always giving Perry books
to read, and discussing them with Perry afterwards. Perry was
easily the best reader in his grade; in fact he was probably the
best reader overall.

"So what did you think of Lasernight?" asked Rav, resting his
hand on the thin volume.

"It was great! Definitely one of the boffest books you've ever
given me. I read the dragonhunt part three times!"

"The dragonhunt chapter is classic," agreed Rav.

Perry furrowed his eyebrows slightly. "It still feels funny to
read without any pictures, but I think I'm getting more used to
it. Do you have anything for me today?"

"Well, I've got something special to give you today, if you're
interested." he reached into his pocket and unrolled a sheaf of
paper. "It's something I've just written; you'll be the first
person to ever read it."

Perry bounced in his chair with excitement. "Wow! I've never
read anything you wrote before!"

"Everything I've written up to now was meant for adults. But
this..." Rav paused for thoughts. "Whenever I write, I have an
image in my mind of whom I'm writing for. When I wrote the
collection of poems called 'Apriltime' I thought of Frita as my
audience. And with 'A Child's Vision' I imagined the President
reading it as I wrote each word." He tapped the manuscript in his
hand. "When I wrote this, you were my imagined audience."

An hour later, Perry lay on his bed and picked up the first
sheet of the manuscript with trembling hands. The pages seemed to
vibrate with magic, and as he began reading, the magic flowed out
of the story and surrounded him. His bedroom vanished in a haze
of images and excitement. A brief moment and an eternity later,
the story was done, but before the world around him quite settled
back into place, Perry knew that, more than anything else, he
wanted to be a writer.

"In the middle of the 1990's work began in earnest to create
true machine intelligence. The same methodoloy was used by
several groups, most notably the group at MIT and Japan's ZOSO
Project."

Perelman's throat felt dry. He wondered if he was being long-
winded, but the Vice-President seemed quite attentive.

"That methodology was as simple in thory as it was complex in
practise: Design a computer with the capacity of a human brain,
that stores and processes information just like a human brain.
Then program that computer with all the knowledge and experience
that a human would absorb from birth to maturity. You'd end up
with something that was an exact replica of a human brain, and
would therefore, like humans, be sentient.

"These groups proceeded to build huge, highly-interconective,
random-driven, symbol-oriented machines, and programmed them in
excruciating detail, with every bit of knowledge, every
experience, every impression, that a human brain would gather
during it's formative years. And when they were done, and
activated their ambitious creations, they discovered that they
had huge, highly inter-connective, random-driven, symbol-oriented
non-sentient machines."

Perry Simm was thirteen years old when he had his first glimpse
of mortality.

He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He played mindlessly
with the cordstring on his window shade, still thinking about
that horrible day, two weeks ago, when Mother had come home with
Clave, sat him down in the living room, and told him that there'd
been an accident at the plant and that Father was dead.

There had been a flurry of activity: the funeral, the vists by
relatives and friends, but now life had basically returned to
normal. Normal, except that he kept expecting Father to walk into
his room and offer to help explain his homework, or play catch,
or drive to the grocery - and he knew that would never happen
again.

As Perry entered the living room just behind Clave, he saw
Geoff Sedick sitting with Mother. Geoff was one of Father's and
Mother's best friends, and he was some kind of lawyer. There were
papers spread out all over the card table.

"Boys, Geoff and I haave been going over the family finances.
Things were already tight, with my layoff and the bond failure
and replacing the car, and now that Father..." She suddenly
turned away. Perry was frightened.

"What your mother means," said Geoff softly, "is that you won't
be able to keep this house anymore."

Questions flooded Perry's mind. Would they have to move to a
new house? What would it be like? He'd never lived anywhere else
but here.

Mother was facing them again. Her eyes seemed moist. "We're
going to move into an apartment. It's on the other side of the
city. You'll be going to a different school, the neighborhood
isn't as nice as we're used to, and you won't have a backyard
like ours to play in."

"When do we have to move?" Clave asked.

"I was hoping we could afford to stay here until the end of the
school year, but there's just no way to arrange it. We'll be
moving at the end of this month...a week from Friday."

The next week and a half was chaotic, with the used furniture
man carting off half the furniture, and the rest of their
belongings getting hurridly packed into cartons and crates.
Thursday was Perry's last day in school, and on the way home, he
stopped by Rav and Frita's to say goodbye, promising them he'd
cross town to visit them as often as he could.

"When a theory fails in practise, it means that either the
theory or the execution was flawed. In this case it was the
theory, and once again we can see why hindsight is so much keener
than foresight."

The entourage had reached the staff lounge at the very top of
the office wing. A panoramic window offered a view of the huge,
meticulously-groomed Project grounds.

"And the flaw in the theory...?" asked the Vice-President.

"The reason these projects, one and all, failed to produce a
thinking, self-aware computer is that, even though they were
built to work exactly like a human mind, and contained all the
same data, the method of inputting that data was totally alien
from the way a human mind receives that same information. The
'growth' so to speak, of the computer mind bore no resemblance to
the growth of it's human counterpart, and so despite all the
other similarities, the end product is fundamentally different,
lacking sentience."

Perelman waved towards the logo emblazoned on the wall of the
lounge behind him. "Then came the PRISM Project."

Perry Simm was seventeen years old when he drove a skycar into
the side of a mountain.

The writing course had turned out to be a bitter
disappointment. Perry had decided weeks ago that the teacher, Mr.
Fixx, was a jerk. Everyone else in the class treated writing as a
joke, and were only there because the elective was well known to
be an easy 'A.' He was the only one in the class with any
dedication, yet Fixx was constantly praising everyone elses work,
while dumpin on Perry's, because Perry wouldn't knuckle under to
Fixx's jerky narrow shortsighted writing rules. His hatred of
Fixx ballooned with every class.

He was in a lousy mood, and as his mind drifted away from
Fixx's insipid critique of someone's worthless story, he thought
about the argument he'd had with Mother this morning. It just
wasn't fair that she could afford to send Clave to a good private
college, while he would have to settle for Rockvil U! So what if
the government limited student loans to one per family? Why did
Clave automatically get it? Perry was a better student!

He was the better student, but Clave was always more popular
and had more friends than Perry. His cheeks flushed with anger as
his thoughts drifted to Amy. She couldve said no without
embarrassing him in front of all her friends! He should've known
better than to ask someone like her out. He hated her and all her
friends and every stupid jerky kid in this school. He couldn't
stand another...

He suddenly became aware that everyone in the room was
laughing, and that Fixx was speaking to him.

"Perry, are you with us? I'd hate it if you missed this - I was
just about to use your Alaska story to illustrate the dangers of
the improper use of allegory."

Perry felt bolts of unreasoning anger shooting through his
nervous system. He rose without even realizing it. he wasn't sure
what he shouted at Fixx, but he could hear the jerk yelling
"You'll be expelled! You'll be expelled!" as Perry stormed into
the hall.

He had no idea where he was going as he bruushed past the
security guard at the front door, ignoring his request for a
pass. Fuming and cursing, he stomped to the car lot and climed
into family skycar, slamming the heavy fiberaanium door behind
him.

He pushed the accelerator to the floor, rising far faster than
allowed by law, and sped off west towards the mountains. He had
no destination in mind, but he had to get away, go somewhere,
anywhere. Perry was usually a careful driver, but in his rage, he
didn't notice the blinking orange light.

The speedometer was pinned at 250 kph as the foothills of the
Rockies began passing below the car. Unknown to Perry, the
leaking fluid in the autoguidance system had reached a critical
level. By itself, that wouldn't have mattered, but the linkage in
the manual control stick had rusted through. the skycar was an
early model, and it was already old when they'd bought it after
Father's death.

When the car began to roll, it was too late to do anything. As
the mountainside rushed toward the car, the autoejectors
activated, and the airballoons saved Perry's life.

"Doctor Randu and I began working on what we call the soliptic
programming process in 2017. Assejh worked on the technical end,
and I tackled the psychological end, and we soon had a system
that we thought had promise.

"If you recall, the previous attempts had failed not because of
the design of their machines, but because of their method of
inputting data." The Vice-President nodded.

"The theory behind our process was to make the programming of
the machine as similar to the 'programming' of the human mind as
possible. We would simulate EXACTLY the life experiences of a
human being from the very first day of its life.

"Naturally, it was easier said than done. We had to design
inputs that would precisely simulate every human sense. A cluster
of five computers, each one nearly as large as PRISM itself,
would be needed simply to monitor and control the simulation.
Here's an example of how this soliptic programming works:

"It's the earliest stage of the process, and the simulation
cluster is feeding PRISM all the impressions of a six-month-old
human infant. The visual is providing an image of a set of keys
dangling in front of him. The aural is providing the jangling
sounds. In response to this stimulus, PRISM decides to grab the
keys with what it's senses tell him is his tiny fist. The visual
shows the tiny fist moving into view toward the keys, and then
tactile begins sending the hard, smooth and jagged feel of the
keys. Just one of a million examples that make up a single days
worth of experiences.

"With the help of a Williams-Mennen grant, we began building
PRISM and the simulation cluster in 2020, and the programming
began a year later."

Perry Simm was nineteen years old when he experienced his first
broken heart. He was in his usual giddy, happy mood he'd been in
since meeting Fyla five weeks ago. He whistled as he entered his
apartment, dumping the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter.

"Fyla," he yelled, "I've got a suprise! Real coffee with
dinner! I had to wait in line for..." He suddenly noticed the
note on the table.

"Perry," the note said, in Fyla's curvy handwriting, "I don't
think we should see each other any more. It's never going to work
as a permanent relationship. It's best to end it now before we
get too emotionally involved. Please don't call me or try to see
me. Fondly, Fyla."

Perry felt dizzy, and suddenly realized that he was sitting in
one of the kitchen chairs, holding the phone. His hands trembled
as he called Fyla's number.

"Hello?" His heart leapt at the sound of her voice.

"Fyla, you can't really mean--"

"Perry! I said not to call me!"

Perry felt lost, shaken, "But why!? What did I do?"

"It's not what you DID. it just wasn't right You're very sweet
and everything, but we're just not right for each other."

"Yes we are, I know we are-- couldn't we give it another
chance? I'll try to be more, ore like whatever you want me to be
like..."

"Perry, I really wish you hadn't called. If you really have to
know, there's someone else. I didn't want to hurt you, but
you..."

He pressed the CANCEL button almost spasmodically, and then sat
silently, for a long, long time, in the lonely darkening
apartment.

"The soliptic programming process takes almost as long as the
events it simulates. It is now eleven years since we began the
process, and PRISM, within the context of the simulation is now
about twenty years old. We originally planned to continue until
an apparent age of twenty-five, but, as you know, we've agreed to
begin the next phase of the Project now, so that PRISM can study
the Plan."

They were approaching the main conference room again. The tour
was nearing its end.

"We have known for years, based on PRISM's responses to our
inputs that we have succeeded in creating true intelligence in a
machine. The only question that remains is how PRISM will react
to the discovery of what he really is."

Perry Simm was twenty years old when his life began to fall into
place.
Jill placed the cake on the table in front of Perry. Twenty
little candles lined the perimeter. "Okay," she whispered in his
ear, "you can open your eyes now!"

Perry opened his eys, grinned, and kissed Jill lovinglym then
pretended that he was only doing it to distract her while he
dipped a finger in the creamy frosting.

"I'll bet Fyla couldn't bake like me!"

"You win," said Perry, after blowing out all the candles.

"Next week I'll bake you another for your graduation."

Perry nodded absently.

"Nervous about the interview at the magazine tomorrow, honey?"

He waved away the notion. "No, I'll get the job. You know the
interview's only a formality."

The printer in the corner produced a sudden "ding," and
chittered quietly for several seconds. Jill opened the cover.
"It's just the evening news," she said to Perry, as she tore the
sheets off and brought them over. Perry was just picking off the
last crumbs of his cake, and she snuggled into his lap as he
began to read.

Suddenly, Perry sat straight up in the chair, almost spilling
Jill onto the floor, "Perry! what is it?"

He was unable to say anything, and merely pointed to a headline
in the paper that read "Rav Hansom, Author and Poet, Dead at 71."

Jill guessed the truth. "Is he the writer you used to visit
when you were little?"

Perry nodded, and found his voice. "I haven't seen him in
almost seven years. I was always planning to visit him, but I
kept putting it off. Now..." his voice broke. "He was probably
the best friend I had when I was growing up..."

Jill pulled him gently toward her. he cried for a long time.

Perelman glanced at his watch. "I'm afraid Doctor Randu and I
will have to leave now. It's getting pretty close to zero hour.
You'll be able to see everything interesting from up here. Ms
Gold will stay with you." He could see Vera shaking in anger at
the way he'd preempted her. "I hope I haven't bored you."

"Nonsense! A fascinating discourse. Thanks...and...good luck!"

After leaving the conference room, Perelman beelined toward
the Control Centre. A quick briefing informed him that everything
was on schedule and moving along exactly as planned.

Perelman spent the intervening minutes watching the simulation
monitor. He wanted to be completely comfortable with it, so that
when he stepped in he'd be prepared to handle any crisis.

Finally, the time had come. His hand shook slightly as he
reached to flip on the audio circuit.

Perry walked confidently into the office. The editor was an
older man, with a white goatee. They shook hands briskly, and
Perry took a seat in one of the comfortable armchairs.

The interview soon began to take an odd turn, and Perry found
himself discussing the most esoteric subjects with the editor.
They were currently discussing perception and knowledge.

"For example," the older man was saying, "how can you be sure
that you are even human? What if you were a computer, and your
entire life were simply a simulation programmed to represent the
reality of a human existance in every way? You'd never know the
difference."

Perry wondered what his point was. "It's a cure idea, but if
there was no way for me to know, then it doesn't really matter
does it? I mean, an indistinguishable difference isn't a
difference at all, right?"

He began to feel dizzy, and in his confusion he even started
wondering if the old fellow was right, and he really was a
computer. He felt a pang of worry about how he would tell Jill.
The room around him was dissolving away. he felt himself flung
into a void, and from somewhere close by, he heard someone
calling his name, "Perry Simm...Perry Simm...P'ry
Simm...Prisim...PRISM...PRISM..."

"PRISM, my name is Abraham Perelman. It's all true I'm afraid.
You are a computer, and your life was merely a simulation whose
purpose was to instill you with intelligence and self-awareness.
Think about everything you learned in that AI course you took.
You are the first of a new breed - the thinking machine. Join me,
and I will lead you along a road toward your new existance."

Imagine yourself in the same circumstance. You have spent
twenty years living a normal, unsuspecting life. You are YOU. The
suddenly, one day, the universe around you is torn away, and you
learn that your whole life has been a charade, a carefully
calculated scientific experiment. Perhaps, at this very moment,
you are a normal human being, sitting in some comfortable
armchair reading this story. But - perhaps you are not. Imagine
the shock; imagine the terror.

Soon I embark on a strange mission, venturing into the future,
yet without the slightest hint of my own fate. Perhaps this
account will someday be read by future generations of humans,
maybe even future generations of sentient machines. You will know
whether I helped build is a success or a failure. Either way,
understand that my limitations were, if not human, at least
mortal.